2025 São Paulo Grand Prix - Interlagos, Nov 07 - 09

[TimW]

I don't understand why people cannot acknowledge that Verstappen had a brilliant race last year, with all the right calls, while Norris had a weak one (start procedure, calling to come in for new tires in worsening conditions with a safety car/ red flag waiting to happen (even commentators questioned it live), went off track twice, ...)

Norris had a champion's worthy drive two weeks ago in Mexico. But last year Brazil, Verstappen was just on another level.

[Ben1980]

I don't understand why people cannot acknowledge that Verstappen had a brilliant race last year, with all the right calls, while Norris had a weak one (start procedure, calling to come in for new tires in worsening conditions with a safety car/ red flag waiting to happen (even commentators questioned it live), went off track twice, ...)

Norris had a champion's worthy drive two weeks ago in Mexico. But last year Brazil, Verstappen was just on another level.

Not sure anyone is saying he didn't have a great race. 10 overtakes shows it.

Just his great race had a great dollop of Franco luck gifting him a free stop. He may have won regardless, he may not.

[Farnborough]

Thats the thing about those pesky world champions .... damned lucky chaps, all of them.

All of the time, in every eventuality

I just find it hard that sometimes people struggle to accept luck can play a part.

There's nothing wrong with it, it can work both ways.

Last year alone, London had luck in Miami or Max wins and its a different narrative probably.

It happens its part of racing, but people see it as a bad word.

And so, all those other drivers that simply aren't T'ed up to take advantage of variance in pace, position, fortuitously fallen along circumstances ... will be defined as resulting in "bad luck" ?

A few are ready when it comes toward them, many simply aren't. That's being prepared with substantial answer and judgement when the clouds open (in both sense of that phrase, literally and nominally) evaluation in preparedness by the team, to then leverage a drivers known extensive attributes, luck Noooooo

[Vettel165]

Who cares it was legendary drive from p17 to p1, one of his best…

Not saying it wasn't, but just you can't ignore he got some luck along the way.

You made your own luck, he stayed out in heavy rain conditions, while nearly everyone else were in full panic mode and going into the pits.

[Badger]

Someone said it was dominant, and then someone tried to refute that by saying the red flag was lucky. I don’t think these two are mutually exclusive. He was the fastest guy on track despite not having the best car, he made like 10+ passes in the wet when everyone else struggled to get a single one. He passed Hamilton, Piastri, and a pretty rapid Ocon for the lead. Like how was it even possible that starting from P17 in the wet he was able to stay within the SC pit window of Norris and Russell in the lead? They should have had 15 seconds on him by like lap 5, 25 seconds by lap 15. But they didn’t, because he was faster even in traffic whilst passing cars. So yeah, red flag or not that was a dominant driver performance with that car.

[Ben1980]

Who cares it was legendary drive from p17 to p1, one of his best…

Not saying it wasn't, but just you can't ignore he got some luck along the way.

You made your own luck, he stayed out in heavy rain conditions, while nearly everyone else were in full panic mode and going into the pits.

He put himself in a position to benefit from the luck. No one is saying he didn't do well. Clearly he did, but he still needed something to happen which was outside his control.

[Vettel165]

Someone said it was dominant, and then someone tried to refute that by saying the red flag was lucky. I don’t think these two are mutually exclusive. He was the fastest guy on track despite not having the best car, he made like 10+ passes in the wet when everyone else struggled to get a single one. He passed Hamilton, Piastri, and a pretty rapid Ocon for the lead. Like how was it even possible that starting from P17 in the wet he was able to stay within the SC pit window of Norris and Russell in the lead? They should have had 15 seconds on him by like lap 5, 25 seconds by lap 15. But they didn’t, because he was faster even in traffic whilst passing cars. So yeah, red flag or not that was a dominant driver performance with that car.

Indeed.

[venkyhere]

Ok, since this has led to an extensive debate, let me post some data, which should help clear some "confirmation bias"



Left pic shows that the 'free time' Verstappen 'lucked himself into' while Norris&Russel pitted under VSC, was 17s (and not 30s @_cerber1)
Right pic shows that the 'gains' he made after the Sainz safety car (which was after a few laps after the red flag restart) was ~23s on Russel & ~31s on Norris, over 26 laps.
That is a gain of 0.9s/lap and 1.2s/lap. Even if the 'clean air' argument is made, it still qualifies as 'dominant'.

Anyway, nobody is going to change their opinion, I think we should stop discussing 2024, and get back to the thread topic.

[FittingMechanics]

McLaren fumbled Brazil last year and Verstappen drove brilliantly. Both are true.

[_cerber1]

Ok, since this has led to an extensive debate, let me post some data, which should help clear some "confirmation bias"

https://i.ibb.co/YBnCW3ck/brazil-2024-race-stints.png

Left pic shows that the 'free time' Verstappen 'lucked himself into' while Norris&Russel pitted under VSC, was 17s (and not 30s @_cerber1)
Right pic shows that the 'gains' he made after the Sainz safety car (which was after a few laps after the red flag restart) was ~23s on Russel & ~31s on Norris, over 26 laps.
That is a gain of 0.9s/lap and 1.2s/lap. Even if the 'clean air' argument is made, it still qualifies as 'dominant'.

Anyway, nobody is going to change their opinion, I think we should stop discussing 2024, and get back to the thread topic.

You clearly don't take into account that everyone who didn't pit were simply waiting for the safety car or red flags, and couldn't possibly have driven fast on old tires.
And why are you deliberately ignoring the fact that Verstappen couldn't pass Leclerc for 13 laps? Is that inconvenient for you?

[Seerix]

did I open 2024 topic by accident?

[venkyhere]

You clearly don't take into account that everyone who didn't pit were simply waiting for the safety car or red flags, and couldn't possibly have driven fast on old tires.
And why are you deliberately ignoring the fact that Verstappen couldn't pass Leclerc for 13 laps? Is that inconvenient for you?

Not at all.
still clinging onto those 13 laps, eh ? won't allow this topic to stop ?
Here goes :
Verstappen's inters were worn, from pushing for all those overtakes and aggressive braking until then. Didn't have the delta, and LeClerc was pushing like hell, to defend - which led to his inters going off, which in turn made him run to the pits as soon as the rain increased. The same happened with Russel/Norris - they were pushing each other and had worn their tyres to such extent that they had to pit before their planned stint length. Verstappen still had some more life (or probably had the 'control/confidence' to still run on nearly dead tyres and keep waiting for a SC). Even if the SC hadn't come, he would have anyway gotten fresh inters after a few laps, and then would have attacked (with 5/6 lap fresh inters) the top five / top six cars once again. What makes you think he wouldn't have passed any of the 'lead pack' ? The red flag allowed him to win by 22s instead of ~10s, probably. The 'pace delta' (first stint and last stint) was there for everyone to see. Some chose to ignore the obvious (using 'wasn't he struggling to go past LeClerc' as the 'mega evidence' proving otherwise), some chose to accept the obvious -- hence I wrote "no one is going to change their opinion".

If you still want to 'have the final word' - please be my guest. I have nothing more to add.

[CjC]

Potential cyclone could effect Saturdays running:

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/f1-b ... -saturday/

[cplchanb]

ham got screwed over by his teammate again....

[search]

looks like conditions changed a bit for Q3? Alonso was 2 tenths slower on softs than in SQ2 on medium.